KHL expanding to China in 2016-17, South Korea could be nextBy: Jared Clinton on December 14, 2015

The first expansion team for the 2016-17 season has been awarded, but it won’t be playing in Las Vegas or Quebec City. The KHL announced Monday the league will have a team from Beijing joining the league, and the new club will begin playing in September 2016, according to TASS.

Beijing’s KHL team, which is yet unnamed, will play at the 18,000-seat MasterCard Center in Beijing, which currently plays host to the Chinese Basketball Association’s Beijing Ducks. The arena was also host to the basketball tournament at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The team will be backed by Russian and Chinese businesses, and the league will also be supplying Beijing with a development academy.

“The task is to build a hockey vertical: a KHL team, a second team playing in the Chinese league, a team in the youth league and mass involvement so that all who wish can play ice hockey and there should be more ice rinks that are public and open for all,” vice president of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation, Roman Rotenberg, told TASS.ru. “This is a priority task.”

The expansion to China has long been rumored, and Pro Hockey Players Association agent Darryl Wolski said in June that the league was planning an expansion into Beijing. One big reason for the expansion is the 2022 Winter Olympics, which are set to take place in Beijing. China was said to be a potential host for a KHL game as soon as this season, though it doesn’t appear as though that will happen.

For years, the KHL has been looking to grow and expand in an attempt to compete with the NHL and become a worldwide league. In 2012, former league president Alexander Medvedev mentioned the potential for the league to expand to 64 teams. Medvedev was replaced by Dmitry Chernyshenko in November 2014.

Yep, all the members of Team NA are American and Canadian players who are 23 years old and younger, hence the nicknames of the "Under-24" team and "Young Guns" team that they've unofficially been called in news broadcasts, newspapers, etc (at least, up here in Canada anyway).

I read the following and couldn't believe this guy's name-General manager Miroslav Satan used virtually all the countries at his disposal in selecting the first 16 players to Team Europe for the 2016 World Cup of Hockey during a press conference in Toronto on Wednesday.

SKA St. Petersburg has continued to roll on through the KHL post-season without the services of Ilya Kovalchuk, who was stripped of the captaincy and has been a healthy scratch for most of the first two rounds, but the saga may be coming to a bizarre close.

According to Agence France-Presse’s Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber, Russian media has been told that Kovalchuk will be leaving St. Petersburg at the end of this season and will suit up for the KHL’s expansion team in China next season. It had been previously reported that Kovalchuk would remain with SKA until at least April 30, meaning any movement from St. Petersburg may have to wait until the summer. SKA is denying the move will take place, however.

The KHL signed a “protocol of intentions” with Chinese club HC Red Star Kunlun in mid-March that would see the team participate in the 2016-17 KHL campaign. Their addition to the league hasn’t yet been finalized as Kunlun needs to “present financial guarantees by April 30th, 2016, comply with conditions imposed on clubs participants and adhere to the rules established by the KHL Regulations.”

A final decision will be made regarding the club this summer, but it’s likely they will debut in the league when the next KHL season opens.

Kovalchuk, 32, has not played since the third game of SKA’s second-round series against Dynamo Moscow, a series which St. Petersburg was trailing 2-1 with Kovalchuk but went on to win 4-2 with their former captain out of the lineup.

When Kovalchuk originally returned to the SKA lineup after being scratched for each of SKA’s wins in the first round series victory over Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, there was some speculation that the relationship between he and SKA could be salvaged, though much of that hope disappeared when he was once again shelved by the club. There’s still a possibility he could stay in St. Petersburg, but the chances seem incredibly slim.

Likewise, there was talk of a potential NHL return for the former Rocket Richard winner, but Kovalchuk would have to jump through hoops in order to return to North America next season. He would need all 30 teams to sign off on his return if he were to come back to the NHL in 2016-17, and his other options include sitting out an entire season or waiting until 2018 to sign a free agent deal with an NHL club of his choosing.

Kovalchuk ending up with the Chinese expansion club, if that comes to pass, would be one of the most unexpected resolutions to his situation with SKA. Kovalchuk has a big-money contract, and that will be a lot for the expansion franchise to take on. It will, however, give him a fresh start on a team that will likely be sorely lacking for standout talent, and it gives them instant star power to help grow the game in China.

With all 8 teams in the World Cup of Hockey having SO much talent on their rosters, it's interesting to see how the coaches set their lines up (and more importantly, to see which players are willing to step into a role other than being a/one of the "top guys" on their franchise teams).

So it looks like the new KHL franchise isn't just a fad. It looks like the sport is starting to have a pretty serious following in China, particularly amongst the younger generations. Case in point, Boston Bruins player Matt Belesky wrote a piece for The Players Tribune about some players and staff from the Bruins who recently flew over to give a hand and work with some kids at a hockey camp in Shanghai.

Biggest shock (for me personally) was that both Finland and USA weren't able to get a single win. I, like many others, figured the standings would see a bunch of matching win-loss records, which would then make it necessary to look at the head-to-head records and/or goal differentials to determine who would advance to the playoff round.

Not gonna lie, I was rooting for Finland to beat the Russians in the final round robin game last night because I wanted Team North America to advance and face Canada in the semifinals. Oh well, still lurve ya Finland 'cuz you gave the Jets Selanne and Laine.

Oh, and go figure, the Jets had 7 players taking part in this tournament, and NONE of them were on teams that advanced to the playoffs. Technically, we do hold the NHL rights to Ivan Telegin, who's on the Russian team here, but he's currently in the KHL after not being able to crack the Jets' NHL roster when he was here, so he doesn't count. On the plus side, our Head Coach, Paul Maurice, IS going to the playoff round since he is one of the assistant coaches for Team Europe.